Treatise on Tolerance
Voltaire
1763
Copyright © Jonathan Bennett 2017. All rights reserved [Brackets] enclose editorial explanations. Small ·dots· enclose material that has been added, but can be read as though it were part of the original text. Occasional •bullets, and also indenting of passages that are not quotations, are meant as aids to grasping the structure of a sentence or a thought. Every four-point ellipsis . . . . indicates the omission of a brief passage that seems to present more difficulty than it is worth. Longer omissions are reported between brackets in normal-sized type. —It may be worth mentioning that this work uses tolérance dozens of times and tolération not once. First launched: July 2018
Contents
1. Short account of Jean Calas’s death 1
2. Results of the execution of Jean Calas 5
3. The idea of the Reformation 6
4. Whether tolerance is dangerous. The peoples that practise it8
5. How tolerance may be admitted 11
6. Whether intolerance a matter of natural law, and of human law 13
7. Whether intolerance was known to the Greeks 13 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire
8. Whether the Romans were tolerant 14
9. The martyrs 17
10. The danger of false legends. Persecution 22
11. Damage done by intolerance 24
12. Did divine law require intolerance in Judaism? Was it always practised? 27
13. Extreme tolerance of the Jews 31
14. Whether intolerance was taught by Jesus-Christ 33
15. Declarations against intolerance 36
16. A dying man talks with a healthy man 37
17. Letter from a subordinate to the Jesuit Le Tellier 38
18. The only cases where intolerance is humanly lawful 39
19. Account of an angry dispute in China 40
20. Whether it is useful to maintain people in superstition 41
21. Virtue is better than knowledge 43
22. Universal tolerance 44
23. A prayer to God 46
24. Postscript 46
25. Sequel and Conclusion 49 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire
Glossary annate: ‘The first year’s revenue of a see or benefice, paid to because there’s no good English equivalent to it. The Oxford the Pope’ (OED). English dictionary includes it for the same reason it has for including Schadenfreude. apology for: Here it means ‘defence of’. Molinist: Follower of Luis de Molina (1535-1600), who wrote condition: As used on page 46 and perhaps elsewhere, it influential works trying to reconcile the reality of human free means something like ‘socio-economic status’. will with various theological doctrines about predestination. convulsionaries: ‘A sect of Jansenist fanatics who repeat- In item (7) on page 39 Molinists are envisaged as taking edly threw themselves into convulsions on the tomb of communion along with Jansenists, but in general the two Deacon Pâris in the cemetery of St. Medard’ (translated from groups were not friends. the Petit Robert dictionary). Nantes: The Edict of Nantes was a French royal decree enthusiasm: Like what we call ‘enthusiasm’ except tending (1598) granting limited freedom of worship and legal equality towards fanaticism. Always used disapprovingly. for Protestants. It was revoked by Louis XIV (1685). Gallican Church: The Catholic Church in France through parlement: ‘A sovereign court of justice formed by a group most of the 18th century. It claimed a good deal of inde- of specialists who are not connected with the royal court’ pendence from Rome, a claim that the Roman Church never [translated from the Petit Robert dictionary]. accepted. St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre: Starting in Paris on that indulgence: (as a count-noun) A certificate supposedly one day in 1572, but spreading across much of France over ensuring the owner of freedom from punishment. two weeks, a massacre of about 10,000 Huguenots. Jansenist: Jansenism was a movement within the Roman Turk(ish): Used to translate Turc and Turque; but actually Catholic Church, heavily influenced by the thought of Au- in the French of Voltaire’s day these words were a kind of gustine, Bishop of Hippo, and regarded by much of the code for ‘Moslem’. Church—especially the Jesuits—as heretical. Waldensians: A sect, starting around 1180, within the League: The Catholic League of France, founded in 1576, Roman Catholic Church, but regarded first as unorthodox was dedicated to the eradication of Protestants from France and before long as downright heretical. With their emphasis and to driving Henry III from the throne. on voluntary poverty, lay preaching, and reliance on the Bible, the Waldensians have been regarded as precursors of moeurs: Someone’s moeurs includes his morality, basic the Protestants. customs, attitudes and expectations about how people will behave, ideas about what is decent. . . and so on. This word— wheel: Breaking someone on the wheel was a method of rhyming approximately with ‘worse’—is left untranslated slowly torturing him to death. Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 12. Intolerance in Judaism?
12. Did divine law require intolerance in today, by all reasonable men. God doesn’t make pacts Judaism? Was it always practised? with trees and stones, that have no feelings; but he makes them with animals, which he has graciously endowed with ‘Divine law’, I believe, stands for the precepts that God a capacity for feeling that is often more sensitive than ours, himself has given. He ordered the Jews to eat a lamb cooked and with various ideas that are necessarily connected to this with green vegetables, and ordered that guests should eat feeling. That is why he forbids the barbarity of feeding on it standing up, staff in hand, in commemoration of the animals’ blood, because the blood is the source of life and Passover; he commanded that in the consecration of the thus of feeling. Deprive an animal of all its blood and all its high priest blood should be applied to his right ear, right organs stop working. So there is a solid reason for Scripture hand, and right foot; curious customs to us, but not to to say in dozens of places that the soul—what was called ‘the antiquity. He ordered them to put the iniquities of the people sensitive soul’—is in the blood, a very natural idea that all on the goat Azazel, and forbade them to eat scaleless fishes, peoples have accepted. pork, hares, hedgehogs, owls, griffins, etc. This idea is the basis for the sympathy we should have He instituted feasts and ceremonies. All these things, for animals. One of the Seven Laws of Noah, accepted among which other nations found to be arbitrary and subordinate the Jews, forbids eating part of an animal that is still alive. to the law of the land and to common usage, became a divine [Then some comments on the cruelty that would make such law for the Jews because God himself had ordered them; just a command necessary, after which:] God, while allowing as whatever we are commanded to do by JESUS-CHRIST, son that animals serve us as food, recommends some humanity of Mary, son of God, is a divine law for us. towards them. It has to be agreed that there is something Let us not inquire here into why God substituted a new barbaric in making them suffer. As for slaughtering an law for the one he had given to Moses, and why he had animal that we have fed with our own hands—the only laid more commandments on Moses than on the patriarch thing that reduces our horror at this is our being used to Abraham, and more on Abraham than on Noah. it. There have always been peoples who have drawn the line at it; and this attitude still exists in India, and none of the ·STARTOFANEND-NOTEONANIMALS· Pythagoreans in Italy and Greece ever ate meat. . . . Wanting to provide some useful Notes to this work, I offer You would have to reject the natural light, it seems to the following remarks. It is said that God made a pact with me, to maintain that beasts are only machines. There is Noah and with all the animals; yet he allowed Noah to eat an obvious contradiction in maintaining that God gave the anything that has life and movement, except for the blood, beasts all the organs of feeling but did not give them feelings. which he did not allow to be consumed. God adds that Also, animals have different ways of expressing need, he will wreak vengeance on any animal that spills human suffering, joy, fear, love, anger, and all their feelings and blood. One can infer from these and several other ·biblical· attitudes; if you haven’t noticed that, you haven’t paid passages that animals have some connaissances [here = ‘states enough attention to animals. It would be very strange if of awareness’]—which has been believed from antiquity until they so finely expressed feelings that they don’t have!
27 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 12. Intolerance in Judaism?
That remark provides active intellects with much food for Other critics infer from all this worship of foreign gods thought concerning the power and goodness of the Creator, that these gods were tolerated by Moses, and in support of who endows with life, feeling, ideas and power beings he has this they quote these words of Deuteronomy: ‘When you are organised with his omnipotent hand. We do not know in the land of Canaan you will not do all the things that we •how these organs are formed, do here today, where every man does what he pleases.’ •how they develop, They find encouragement in the fact that nothing is •how anything comes to be alive, or said of any religious act of the people in the desert: no •by what laws feelings, ideas, memory are attached to Passover, no Pentecost, no mention of celebrating the Feast this life. of Tabernacles, no settled public prayer; and to cap it all off, This profound and eternal ignorance is inherent in our circumcision—the seal of God’s covenant with Abraham— nature; yet in this state we dispute incessantly, persecuting was not practised. . . . one another like bulls fighting with their horns without There is no point in arguing here against the critics who knowing why they fight or how they have horns. maintain that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses; everything needing to be said on that subject was said long ·ENDOFEND-NOTE· ago. and even if a small part of Moses’ books was written in [Picking up from ‘. . . than on Noah.’] He seems to adjust himself to the time of the Judges or the Kings or the High Priests, that the times and to particular groups within the human race—a would not make the books less inspired or divine. kind of paternal gradation. But these abysses are too deep It is enough, it seems to me, that it is proved by Holy for my feeble sight; I shall keep to my subject, and see first Scripture that—despite the extraordinary punishment drawn what intolerance was among the Jews. down on the Jews by the cult of Apis—they had complete It is true that in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and liberty ·of worship· for a long time. Perhaps indeed the Deuteronomy there are very severe laws against ·false· wor- massacre of 23,000 men by Moses for ·worshipping· the ship, and even more severe punishments for it. Many golden calf set up by his brother led him to appreciate that commentators work laboriously to reconcile Moses’ words of •nothing was gained by severity, and that •he would have to with those of Jeremiah and Amos, and with the celebrated close his eyes to the people’s passion for foreign gods. speech of St. Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles. Amos says Sometimes he seems to transgress his own law. He that in the deserts the Jews worshipped Moloch, Remphan forbade the making of images, yet set up a brazen serpent. and Chiun. Jeremiah says explicitly that God asked for no Another deviation from the law occurred later in the temple sacrifice from their fathers when they came out of Egypt. St. of Solomon, who had twelve oxen carved to sustain the great Stephen says in his speech to the Jews: ‘They worshipped basin of the temple, and in the ark were placed cherubim, the host of Heaven; they offered ·to the God of Israel· no one with the head of an eagle, one with the head of a calf; slain beasts or sacrifices during forty years in the desert; and it seems to have been this badly made calf-head, found they carried the tabernacle of the god Moloch, and the star in the temple by Roman soldiers, that led to the long-time of their god Remphan.’ belief that the Jews worshipped an ass.
28 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 12. Intolerance in Judaism?
The worship of foreign gods was prohibited in vain. about this; but this precise declaration at least shows clearly Solomon was quite at his ease in idolatry. Jeroboam, to that God tolerated Chamos. The Holy Scripture does not say whom God gave ten parts of the kingdom, sets up two golden ‘What you think your God Chamos gave to you, don’t you calves, and rules for twenty-two years, combining in himself think it is yours by right?’ It says very clearly ‘You have the the dignities of monarch and high priest. The little kingdom right’—tibi jure debentur—which is the real meaning of the of Judah under Rehoboam puts up altars and statues to Hebrew Otho thirasch. foreign gods. The holy king Asa does not destroy the ‘high The story of Micah and the Levite, told in Judges 17 and places’. The high priest Urijah erects in the temple, in the 18, is another incontestable proof of the great liberty and place of the altar of holocausts, an altar for the king of Syria tolerance that prevailed among the Jews. Micah’s mother, ·to worship at·. In short, we don’t see here any restraint in a rich Ephraimite woman, had lost eleven hundred pieces matters of religion. I know that the majority of the Jewish of silver. Her son, who had taken them, restored them to kings murdered each other, but that was always to further a her, and she devoted them to the Lord, had images made material interest, not on account of belief. . . . of it, and built a small chapel. A Levite served the chapel, It is objected that the Jewish people were very ignorant receiving ten pieces of silver, a tunic, and a cloak every year, and barbaric. In the war with the Midianites [Voltaire has a note besides his food; and Micah said ‘Now I know the Lord will stressing how tiny their territory was] Moses ordered that all the do me good, seeing I have in my home a Levite as my priest’. male children and all the mothers should be slain and the However, six hundred men of the tribe of Dan, who plunder divided. . . . Some commentators even claim that 32 wanted to seize some town of the district to settle in, and had girls were sacrificed to the Lord: Cesserunt in partem Domini no Levite priest to secure the favour of God for their enter- triginta duae animae [‘The Lord’s tribute was 32 persons’]. prise, went to Micah’s house and took his clerical garment, The Jews did indeed offer human sacrifices to God; his idols, and his Levite, despite this priest’s remonstrances witness Jephthah’s sacrifice ·of his daughter· [see Judges and despite the cries of Micah and his mother. They then 11:30–39], and witness the dismembering of King Agag by proceeded with confidence to attack the town of Laish, and the priest Samuel. Ezekiel even tries to encourage them by put everything in it to fire and sword, as was their custom. promising that they will eat human flesh: ‘You will eat the They gave the name ‘Dan’ to Laish in memory of their victory, horse and the rider; you will drink the blood of princes.’ We and set Micah’s idol on an altar; and, what is still more do not find in the whole history of this people any mark of remarkable, Moses’ grandson Jonathan was the high priest generosity, magnanimity, or beneficence; but from the clouds of this temple, in which the God of Israel and Micah’s idol of this long and frightful barbarism there always emerges a were worshipped. glimmer of universal tolerance. After the death of Gideon, the Hebrews worshipped Baal- Jephthah, who was inspired by God and sacrificed his Berith for nearly twenty years, and gave up the cult of Adonai daughter, said to the Ammonites: ‘What your God Chamos [i.e. the God of Israel]; and no leader or judge or priest cried for gave to you, isn’t it yours by right? Then let us take the vengeance. Their crime was great, I admit; but if even this land that our God has promised us.’ More could be said idolatry was tolerated, how many differences within the true
29 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 13. Extreme tolerance of the Jews cult must have been tolerated? Again, when in later years the idolatrous Naaman asked Some allege as a proof of intolerance that when the Lord Elisha if he were allowed to accompany his king to the temple himself had allowed his ark to be taken by the Philistines of Rimmon and worship there with him, didn’t Elisha—the in a battle, his only punishments were •a secret disease man who had had children devoured by bears—merely say resembling haemorrhoids, •overthrowing the statue of Dagon, ‘Go in peace’? and •sending a multitude of rats into their countryside; And there is more: the Lord orders Jeremiah to. . . .go but—·this being where serious intolerance is supposed to to the kings of Moab, Ammon, Edom, Tyre and Sidon and show up·—when the Philistines sent back the ark drawn by to say on behalf of the Lord: ‘I have given all your lands two cows that had calves, and offered to God five golden rats to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, my servant.’ Here an and five golden haemorrhoids,1 the Lord slew seventy elders idolatrous king is declared to be God’s servant and favourite. of Israel and 50,000 of the people for looking at the ark. The [A long, wearisome paragraph about the monetary value answer to that is that the Lord’s punishment was not for any assigned to things that the Lord, through Jeremiah, tells the belief, for any difference within the religion, or for idolatry. Jewish king Zedekiah to give to the king of Babylon. Voltaire If the Lord had wanted to punish idolatry, he would have is sure that the reported amount is exaggerated, but thinks slain all the Philistines who dared to take his ark and who that even an eighth of it would be an ‘astonishing’ gift ‘from worshipped Dagon; but instead he slew 50,070 of his own God to an idolatrous king’. He concludes:] But treasures people solely because they looked at his ark, which they are nothing in the eyes of God; the title of ‘servant’ given to ought not to have looked at. So different are the laws, the Nebuchadnezzar is the real and inestimable treasure. moeurs, and the economy of the Jews from anything we know God is equally favourable to the king we call ‘Cyrus’. today; so far are God’s inscrutable ways above our own! The He calls him his ‘Christ’, his ‘anointed’, though he was judicious Don Calmet writes: ‘The rigorous punishment of not anointed in the ordinary meaning of the word, and this large number of men will seem excessive only to those although he followed the religion of Zoroaster; he calls him who have not understood how far God wanted to be feared his ‘shepherd’, though he was a usurper in the eyes of men. and respected among his people, and whose opinions about There is no greater mark of favour in the whole of Scripture. God’s views and designs are based wholly on the dim lights You read in Malachi that ‘from east to west the name of their own reason.’ of God is great among the nations, and pure oblations are God is not punishing a foreign cult, but a profanation everywhere offered to him’. God takes care of the idolatrous of his own, an indiscreet curiosity, an act of disobedience, Ninevites as he does of the Jews; he threatens and pardons possibly a spirit of revolt. Clearly such chastisements belong them. Melchizedech, who was not a Jew, sacrificed to God. to God only in the Jewish theocracy. It cannot be repeated The idolatrous Balaam was a prophet. So Scripture tells us too often that those times and those moeurs have no relation that God not only tolerated other peoples but took a paternal to our own. care of them. And we dare to be intolerant!
1 [That really is what the Bible says: 1 Samuel 6:4.]
30 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 13. Extreme tolerance of the Jews
13. Extreme tolerance of the Jews that the law of Moses spoke only of temporal chastisement, down to the fourth generation. However, despite the precise Hence under Moses, under the judges, under the kings you formulation of this law and God’s express declaration that keep finding instances of tolerance. There is more: Moses he would punish down to the fourth generation, Ezekiel tells says several times that ‘God punishes the fathers in the the Jews the very opposite. He tells them that the son will children, down to the fourth generation’; this threat was for not bear the iniquity of his father; and he even goes so far as a people to whom God had not revealed the immortality of to make God say that he had given them ‘statutes that were 1 the soul, or the penalties and rewards of another life. These not good’. truths were not made known either in the Decalogue or any The book of Ezekiel was nevertheless inserted into the law in Leviticus or Deuteronomy. They were dogmas of the canon of writers inspired by God. The book was always Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Cretans; but accepted, despite its outright contradiction of Moses. It is they had no part in the religion of the Jews. Moses does not true that the synagogue did not allow anyone to read it until say ‘Honour your father and your mother if you want to go he was thirty years old, as St. Jerome tells us; but that was to Heaven’ but ‘Honour your father and your mother so as to for fear of the young men’s being corrupted by the too candid live long on the earth’. He threatens the Jews only with bodily depictions in chapters 16 and 23 of the licentious conduct maladies and other material evils [and he goes into some of of the two sisters Aholah and Aholibah. the imaginatively sordid details, for which see Deuteronomy When the immortality of the soul was at length admit- 28.] Nowhere does he tell them that their immortal souls ted,. . . will be tortured or rewarded after death. God, who himself ·STARTOFALONGEND-NOTE· led his people, punished or rewarded them immediately for Those who think they have found in the Pentateuch the their good or bad actions. Everything was temporal. As the doctrine of Heaven and Hell as we understand it have been learned Bishop Warburton has pointed out, God had no need strangely misled. . . . The Vulgate translated a Hebrew word then—when he was their king, and dispensed justice on the meaning ‘pit’ by infernum, this was translated into French as spot—to reveal to them a doctrine that he was saving for the Enfer [= ‘hell], which led people to think that the ancient time when he would no longer be governing his people. Hebrews had the Greeks’ notion of Hades, which other Those who ignorantly maintain that Moses taught the nations had also known under other names. immortality of the soul deprive the New Testament of one of In Numbers 16 we are told that the earth opened its its greatest advantages over the Old Testament. It is certain mouth under the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and
1 Ezekiel’s view eventually prevailed in the Synagogue; but there were always Jews who while believing in eternal punishments also believed that God punishes children for the sins of their fathers. Today they are punished down to the fiftieth generation, and still have eternal penalties to fear. How can the descendants of Jews who were not complicit in the death of JESUS-CHRIST. . . .be temporally punished through their children, who are as innocent as their fathers? This temporal punishment—or rather this way of life different from other peoples, engaging in business without having a fatherland—cannot be regarded as a punishment when compared with the eternal pains that they will suffer because of their lack of belief, which they can avoid by a sincere conversion.
31 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 13. Extreme tolerance of the Jews swallowed them along with their tents and their goods, •eaten by worms hurling them alive into an underground sepulchre; and this does not mean that Moses taught the Jews the dogma of the passage certainly has nothing to say about the souls of these immortality of the soul! And the words ‘Their fire shall not be three Hebrews, or about the torments of Hell or eternal quenched’ does not mean that the corpses that are exposed punishment. to the view of the populace suffer the eternal pains of Hell. It is strange that in the Dictionnaire Encyclopédique’s en- How can someone cite a passage from Isaiah to prove try on Enfer the ancient Hebrews are said to have recognised that the Jews of Moses’ time had received the doctrine of the reality of Hell. If they did, that would be an intolerable the immortality of the soul? In terms of the ancient Hebrew contradiction in the Pentateuch. . . . The Dictionary cites dating system [in which a year’s number is supposed to mark its Deuteronomy 32 [which Voltaire quotes in its entirety, com- distance from the start of the world], Moses lived around the year menting:] Is there the least connection between these words 2500, whereas Isaiah prophesied in the year 3380, nearly and the idea of infernal punishment as we understand it?. . . . eight centuries later! To claim to prove that an author had The author of this entry also cites a passage from Job a certain opinion by citing a passage, by an author eight 24 [an obscure affair which Voltaire quotes, denying that centuries later, in which that opinion is not mentioned—this it provides the faintest evidence that] Moses had taught is an insult to common sense or a mere joke. . . . the Jews the clear and simple doctrine of punishments and [Voltaire says that when the Jews did come to believe in rewards after death. The book of Job has no relation to the immortality of the soul, they were still ‘not enlightened the Laws of Moses. Indeed, Job was probably not Jewish; regarding its spiritual nature’. He then cites three Church that was the opinion of St. Jerome. . . . The word ‘Satan’, Fathers saying outright that the soul is an airy material thing which occurs in Job, was not known by the Jews and occurs with a size and shape, and remarks defensively that ‘really nowhere in the Pentateuch. The Jews learned this name their theology is fundamentally quite sound’: they didn’t in Chaldea, along with the names ‘Gabriel’ and ‘Raphael’, grasp ‘the incomprehensible nature of the soul’, but they unknown before their captivity in Babylon. So it was very were sure of its immortality and had a Christian view of it.] clumsy to cite Job on this topic. We know that the soul is spiritual, but we hven’t the least The last chapter of Isaiah is also cited: ‘And it shall come idea of what spirit is. We have a very imperfect grasp of what to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one matter is, and it’s impossible for us to have a clear idea of sabbath to another, all flesh shall come to worship before me, anything that isn’t matter. Knowing very little about things saith the Lord. And they shall go forth and look upon the that affect our senses, we cannot, unaided, know anything carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for about what is out of the reach of the senses. We transfer their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; certain words from our ordinary language into the depths of and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.’ Their being metaphysics and theology, to give ourselves some faint idea •thrown onto the garbage dump, of things that we cannot conceive of or express; we try to •exposed to the view of passers-by until they are dis- prop ourselves up with these words, so as to maintain if we gusted by them, and can our feeble understanding in these unknown regions.
32 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 14. Whether intolerance was taught by Jesus-Christ
So we avail ourselves of the word esprit [regularly translated of the just went to the Fortunate Islands, and those of the as ‘spirit’] which corresponds to ‘breath’ and ‘wind’, to stand wicked into a kind of Tartarus. They offered no sacrifices, for something that is not material; and this word ‘breath’, and met in a special synagogue apart from the others. ‘wind’, esprit—carrying us despite ourselves to the idea of a In short, anyone who looks closely into Judaism will be substance that is light and agile—pushes us on into doing astonished to find the greatest tolerance in the midst of the what we can to conceive pure spirituality. But we never most barbaric horrors. It is a contradiction, indeed; nearly arrive at a clear notion; we don’t even know what we mean all nations are governed by contradictions. It’s a fortunate by the word ‘substance’. Strictly and literally, it means ‘that contradiction that brings gentler moeurs to a people with which is under’ [Latin sub = ‘under’, stans = ‘standing’]; and that bloody laws. itself warns us that it is incomprehensible, for what is it for something to be under? It is not for us in this life to share in God’s secrets. Plunged here into deep darkness, we fight 14. Whether intolerance was taught by one another, striking out wildly in the middle of this night, Jesus-Christ without knowing exactly why we are fighting. Any reasonable man who thinks carefully about all that Let us now see whether JESUS-CHRIST set up sanguinary will conclude that we ought to be indulgent towards the views laws, enjoined intolerance, ordered the building of dungeons of others, and to deserve indulgence in our turn. of the inquisition, or instituted the ceremony of burning at These remarks bear on the question of whether men the stake. should be tolerant of one another; for in showing how wrong There are, if I am not mistaken, only a few passages in the both sides have always been, they show that at all times men gospels from which the persecuting spirit might infer that ought to have treated one another with indulgence. intolerance and constraint are lawful. One is the parable ·ENDOFLONGEND-NOTE· in which the kingdom of Heaven is compared to a king who invites people to the wedding-feast of his son (Matthew 22). [picking up from ‘at length admitted . . . .’ on page 31] which probably The king says to them, by means of his servants: ‘My oxen began about the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Sad- and my poultry are killed; everything is ready; come to the ducees continued to believe that there were no punishments wedding.’ Some go off to their country houses, ignoring the and rewards after death, and that the power of feeling and invitation; others go about their business; others assault thinking perished with us, like the power of walking and and kill the king’s servants. The king sends his army against digesting. They denied the existence of angels. They differed those murderers, and destroys their town. He then sends from the other Jews much more than Protestants differ from out on the high road to bring in to the feast all who can Catholics, yet they remained in the communion of their be found. One of these sits at table without being dressed brethren. Some of their sect even became high priests. appropriately for a wedding, and is put in irons and cast into The Pharisees believed in predestination and in the trans- outer darkness. migration of souls. The Essenians thought that the souls It is clear that, as this allegory concerns only the kingdom
33 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 14. Whether intolerance was taught by Jesus-Christ of Heaven, it certainly does not give a man the right to compelled by force, to be in the bosom of the Church? Jesus strangle or imprison a neighbour who comes to dine with says in the same parable: ‘Do not have to dinner your friends him not wearing a festive garment! I know of no case in or your wealthy relatives.’ Has it ever been inferred from this history of a prince having a courtier hanged on that ground; that we must not dine with our relatives and friends when nor is it to be feared that if an emperor sends his pages to they have acquired a little money? invite the princes of his empire to dine with him, the princes After the parable of the feast JESUS-CHRIST says: ‘If any will kill the pages. man comes to me and does not hate his father, his mother, The invitation to the feast means selection for salvation; his brothers, his sisters, and even his own soul, he cannot the murder of the king’s envoys represents the persecution be my disciple etc. For which of you, intending to build a of those who preach wisdom and virtue. tower, does not first count the cost?’ Is there anyone in the The other parable (Luke 14) tells of an ordinary man who world so unnatural as to conclude that one must hate one’s invites his friends to a grand supper. When he is ready father and mother? Isn’t it easy to see that the meaning is to sit at table, he sends his servant to inform them. One ‘Do not hesitate between me and your dearest affections’? pleads that he has bought an estate and is going to visit it; The passage in Matthew 18 is quoted: ‘Anyone who does as one does not go to see an estate during the night, this not hear the Church, let him be as a heathen and as a excuse does not seem genuine. Another says that he has tax-collector.’ This does not say outright that heathens and bought five pairs of oxen, and must try them; his excuse is collectors of the king’s taxes should be persecuted; they are as weak as the other—one does not try oxen at dinner-time. cursed, it is true, but they are not handed over to the secular A third replies that he has just married; and that is certainly arm. Instead of losing any of the prerogatives of citizenship, a good excuse. The would-be host angrily orders the blind these farmers of taxes have received the greatest privileges. and the lame to be brought to the feast; then, seeing that It is the only profession condemned in Scripture, and the there are still empty places, says to his servant: ‘Go out into one most in favour with governments. Why, then, should we the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.’ not be as indulgent to our erring brethren, ·the heathens·, It is true that this is not explicitly said to depict the as to the tax-gatherers?. . . . kingdom of Heaven. There has been too much misuse of The always-mischievous persecuting spirit seeks further the words ‘Compel them to come in’; but it is obvious that a justification of itself in •the driving of the merchants from the single manservant could not forcibly compel all the people temple and •the sending of a legion of demons from the body he meets to come and dine with his master; and guests who of a possessed man into the bodies of two thousand unclean were thus forced to be there would not make the dinner very animals. But who doesn’t see that these are instances of the agreeable! According to the most respected commentators, justice that God himself metes out for a contravention of the ‘Compel them to come in’ merely means ‘Beg, entreat, urge law? The Sanhedrin and the priests allowed merchants in them to come in’. Pray tell me, what do this request and this the temple to provide materials for the sacrifices; but it was dinner have to do with persecution? a lack of respect for the house of the Lord to change it into Taking all this literally, must a man be blind, lame and a merchant’s shop. The God to whom the sacrifices were
34 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 14. Whether intolerance was taught by Jesus-Christ made might, though hidden in a human form, destroy this calumniators and his wicked judges, but begged them to profanation; he might also punish those who introduced into treat his children in the way they treated him if his children the country such enormous herds of animals forbidden by a should ever be so fortunate as to deserve their hatred;1 the law which he deigned to observe himself. These cases have legislator of the Christians, infinitely superior, begged his no relation whatever to persecution on account of dogma. father to forgive his enemies. The spirit of intolerance must be very poor in argument if If JESUS-CHRIST seemed to fear death, and suffered such these foolish pretexts are the best it can do! extreme anguish that he sweated blood—the strongest and Nearly all the other words and actions of JESUS-CHRIST rarest symptom ·of fear·—this was because he deigned to teach gentleness, patience, and indulgence. The father who stoop to all the weakness of the human body that he had put welcomes back the prodigal son; the worker who comes at the on. His body trembled—his soul was unshakable. He taught last hour and is paid the same as the others; the charitable us that true strength and grandeur consist in supporting the Samaritan; he tells his disciples that they need not fast; he evils under which our nature succumbs. It is a splendid act himself pardons the woman who has sinned; he contents of courage to run towards death while fearing it. himself with recommending fidelity to the adulterous woman. Socrates had treated the sophists as ignorant men, and He even deigns to participate in the innocent joy of wedding convicted them of bad faith; Jesus, using his divine rights, guests in Cana: already somewhat inebriated, they ask for treated the Scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites, fools, blind more wine, and he is willing to work a miracle in their favour, and wicked men, serpents, and vipers. turning water into wine for them. Socrates was not accused of trying to found a new sect; He does not exclaim even against Judas, who is going to nor was JESUS-CHRIST. It is said that the chief priests and betray him ; he commands Peter never to use the sword; he all the Council tried to get false testimony against Jesus so reproaches the sons of Zebedee who, after the example of as to put him to death. Elias, wanted to bring fire from Heaven down on a town that Well, they may have wanted false testimony, but they refused him shelter. did not accuse him of having publicly preached against the In the end he died a victim to malice. If one may venture to law. He was in fact obedient to the Law of Moses from his compare the sacred with the profane—God with a man—his childhood until his death; he was circumcised on his eighth death, humanly speaking, has much in common with that day like all the other children. He was later baptised in the of Socrates. The Greek philosopher was a victim to the Jordan, but that was a sacred ceremony among the Jews, as hatred of the sophists, priests, and leaders of the people; among all the peoples of the orient. . . . the law-giver of the Christians was destroyed by the Scribes, Jesus obeyed the Law in everything; he observed all the Pharisees, and the priests. Socrates could have escaped the Sabbath days; he abstained from forbidden foods; he death, and was not willing to; JESUS-CHRIST offered himself celebrated all the festivals; and he had celebrated Passover voluntarily. The Greek philosopher not only pardoned his even before he died. He was not accused of having any new
1 [This bizarre plea must come from Voltaire’s being misled by some extremely bad French translation of the end of Socrates’ Apology.]
35 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 16. A dying man talks with a healthy man opinion, or of observing any foreign rite. Born an Israelite, The angry Sanhedrin regarded this reply as blasphemous. he lived his life as an Israelite. They no longer had the right to punish; they brought Jesus Two witnesses came forward and accused him of having before the Roman Governor of the province, and lyingly said that he could destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three accused him of disturbing the public peace, of saying that days [(Matthew 26)]. The worldly Jews couldn’t make any sense there was no no need to pay tribute to Caesar, and of calling of such a statement, but it was not an accusation of wanting himself King of the Jews. . . . to found a new sect. When the Governor, Pilate, learned that he was a Galilean, The high priest questioned him, and said: ‘I command he sent him straight to Herod, the Tetrarch of Galilee. Herod you by the living God to tell us if you are the Christ, son of thought it was impossible that Jesus should have aimed God.’ We are not told what the high priest understood by to be a political leader or claimed to have royal status; he ‘son of God’. This phrase was sometimes use to mean ‘man treated him with contempt and sent him back to Pilate, who who is just’, as the phrase ‘son of Belial’ was used to mean feebly condemned him so as to quieten the tumult that had ‘wicked man’. The crude Jews had no idea of the sacred arisen against himself. . . . The Governor Festus later showed mystery of a Son of God, God himself come to earth. ·in his dealings with the apostle Paul· more generosity than Pilate did. ·STARTOFEND-NOTE· I now ask: is it tolerance or intolerance that is of divine It was in fact impossible or at least very difficult for the Jews right? If you wish to be like JESUS-CHRIST, be martyrs, not to understand, without the help of a particular revelation, executioners. this ineffable mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, God himself. Genesis 6 calls sons of powerful men ‘sons of God’, in the way great cedars are called ‘cedars of God’ 15. Declarations against intolerance in the Psalms. Samuel says that a ‘fear of God’ came over the people, that is, a great fear; a great wind, ‘a wind of [This chapter mainly consists of a couple of dozen short God’; Saul’s illness, ‘evil spirit from God’. Yet it seems statements against intolerance, mostly by French writers, that when Jesus called himself the ‘son of God’, the Jews followed by this:] Passages like these could fill an enormous understood him quite literally; but if they regarded these book. These days our histories, our treatises, our sermons, words as blasphemy, that may be further evidence of their our works on morality, our catechisms, are all suffused ignorance of the mystery of the incarnation and of God, Son with—and all teach—this sacred duty of forbearance. What of God, sent to earth for the salvation of men. mysterious force, what failure of thinking, would lead us to deny in practice a theory that we daily proclaim? When our ·ENDOFNOTE· actions belie our morality, that is because we believe there Jesus replied to him: ‘You have said it; but I tell you that is some advantage for us in acting contrary to our teaching; you will soon see the son of man sitting on the right hand of but there’s certainly no advantage in persecuting those who the power of God, coming in the clouds of Heaven.’ don’t share our opinions, making them hate us. So there
36 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 17. Letter from a subordinate to the Jesuit Le Tellier is, I repeat, something absurd about intolerance. You may The dying man: ‘How can I perjure myself to please you? say that those who have something to gain from upsetting In a moment I am due to appear before God, who punishes ·people’s· consciences are not absurd. The following little perjury.’ chapter is aimed in their direction. The barbarian: ‘It doesn’t matter. You will have the pleasure of being buried in a cemetery; and your wife and children will have enough to live on. Die a hypocrite: 16. A dying man talks with a healthy man hypocrisy is a fine thing; it is, as someone said, a homage that vice pays to virtue. A little hypocrisy, my friend—what A citizen was dying in a provincial town; a man in good does that cost you?’ health came to attack his last moments, and said to him: The dying man: ‘Alas! You despise God, or you don’t ‘Wretch! •think as I do, right now; •sign this statement; recognise him; because you are demanding at the point of •confess that five propositions are in a book that neither you death a lie—you who will soon enough receive your own nor I have ever read; •accept right now Lamfran’s opinion judgment from him, and will have to answer for that lie.’ • against Bérenger’s; embrace the second Nicean Council The barbarian: ‘What? You insolent fellow! I don’t • against the Council of Frankfurt; explain to me on the recognise God?’ spot how the words “My father is greater than I am” mean The dying man: ‘Excuse me, my brother, but I’m afraid precisely “I am as great as he is”. that you don’t know him. He whom I worship is at this ‘Tell me how the Father transmits everything to the Son moment restoring my forces to tell you with a dying voice except his fatherhood, or I’ll have your body thrown out with that if you believe in God you should show charity towards the garbage; your children won’t inherit anything, your wife me. He gave me my wife and my children; don’t you make will be deprived of her dowry, and your family will beg for them die of misery. As for my body: do what you like with it, bread—which people like me won’t give them.’ I surrender it to you; but I urge you to believe in God! The dying man: ‘I can hardly take in what you are saying The barbarian: ‘Do, without quibbling, what I have told to me; your threats reach my ears in a confused form, they you to do; I want it; I order it.’ trouble my soul, they make my death frightful. In God’s name, have pity on me!’ The dying man: ‘What interest have you in tormenting me so?’ The barbarian: ‘Pity! I can’t have pity on you unless you agree with me on everything.’ The barbarian: ‘What! What interest? If I get your The dying man: ‘Alas! You know that in these last signature, that will be worth a good canonry.’ minutes all my senses are coming apart, all the doors to The dying man: ‘Ah, my brother! here is my last moment; my understanding are shut, my ideas are disappearing, my I am dying; I shall beg God to touch you and convert you.’ thought is dying. Am I in a condition for argument?’ The barbarian: ‘Devil take the wretched man who hasn’t The barbarian: ‘Well, if you can’t believe what I want you signed! I shall sign for him, counterfeiting his writing.’ to believe, say that you believe it; I’ll settle for that.’ The following letter helps to make the same point.
37 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 17. Letter from a subordinate to the Jesuit Le Tellier
17. Letter from a subordinate to the Jesuit day of the battle of Hochsted [which the French lost; a victory of Le Tellier Protestants over Roman Catholics, which the English call ‘the battle of Blenheim’]. 6 May 1714 (5) The matter of the Jansenists [see Glossary] may seem Reverent Father: I am obeying the orders your reverence a bit more awkward; there are I think at least 6,000,000 of gave me to present the best means for delivering Jesus them; but a spirit like yours shouldn’t be daunted by that. and his company [meaning: the ‘Society of Jesus’, the Jesuits] from I am counting as ‘Jansenist’ all the parlements [see Glossary] their enemies. There are I believe no more than 500,000 that so unworthily uphold the liberties of the Gallican [see Huguenots in the kingdom—some say 1,000,000, others say Glossary] church. It is for Your Reverence to bring your 1,500,000—but whatever the number is, here is my advice, customary prudence to bear on the question of how to get all submitted dutifully and very humbly. these troublesome spirits to submit to you. The gunpowder (1) It is easy to round up all the preachers in one day, plot failed because one of the plotters indiscreetly tried to and to hang them all at once in one place, not only to edify save his friend’s life; but you don’t have to fear anything like the public but also for the splendour of the spectacle. that because you have no friend; it will be easy for you blow (2) I would have all the fathers and mothers assassinated up all the parlements in the kingdom, using gunpowder. . . . in their beds, because if they were killed in the streets this I calculate that 36 barrels of powder will be needed for each could cause some tumult; some might even get away, which parlement; given twelve of them, that comes to only 432 should be avoided at all costs. This project is absolutely barrels; at 100 ecus each, that comes to 129,600 livres—a required by our principles; for if a heretic should be killed, trifle for the Society’s treasury. as so many great theologians have proved, then obviously all Once the parlements have been blown up, you will have heretics should be killed. their work taken over by your people, who are perfectly (3) I would have all the ·Huguenot· girls immediately instructed in the laws of the kingdom. married to good Catholics, because the State must not (6) It will be easy to poison Cardinal de Noailles, who is a be depopulated too much after the recent war; but with simple man, and not suspicious of anyone. regard to boys aged 14 or 15, already indoctrinated with bad Your Reverence will employ the same methods of conver- principles that we have no chance of destroying ·in them·, sion with the various recalcitrant bishops: their bishoprics my opinion is that they should all be castrated, so that this will be given to Jesuits, on orders from the Pope. Then, with wretched species is never reproduced. As for the smaller all the bishops on the right side, and all the priests skilfully boys: they will be brought up in our colleges, and will be chosen by the bishops—that’s what I am advising, subject to whipped into knowing by heart the works of Sanchez and our Reverence’s good pleasure. Molina. (7) The Jansenists are said to celebrate Communion, at (4) I think (subject to correction) that all the Lutherans least at Easter; so it would not be a bad idea to sprinkle in Alsace should be treated in the same way, given that in their communion wafers with the drug that was used to 1704 I saw two old women of that territory laughing on the give the Emperor Henry VII what he deserved. It may be
38 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 18. The only cases where intolerance is humanly lawful objected that in doing this one would risk giving rat-poison harsh to carry out his project in all its details; but we need also to Molinists [see Glossary]. It is a strong objection; but to see what the situations are where people who don’t share every project has its drawbacks. . . . If we were held up by our opinion ought to be broken on the wheel, hanged, or these little difficulties, we would never get anything done; sent to the galleys. That is the topic of the next chapter. and anyway if we are trying to do as much good as possible, we shouldn’t be upset if this great good brings with it some negligible bad consequences. 18. The only cases where intolerance is We have nothing to reproach ourselves with. It has been humanly lawful demonstrated that all the so-called ‘Reformed’ people, all the Jansenists, are inheritors of hell; we are merely speeding A government has the right to punish men’s errors if they up their taking possession of it. And it is equally clear are crimes; they are crimes only when they disturb society; that the Molinists are entitled to go to Heaven; so when we they do that when they engender fanaticism; so men must inadvertently and with no bad intention make them perish, avoid fanaticism if they are to deserve tolerance. we are accelerating their joy. In each case we are the agents If a few young Jesuits—knowing that the Church has a of Providence. horror of those who are damned, that the Jansenists are As for those who might be a little upset at the number, condemned in a papal bull, and thus that the Jansenists are Your Reverence can point out to them that in the roughly damned—proceed to burn a house of the Oratorian priests fourteen centuries between the Church’s first flowering and because the Oratorian Quesnel was a Jansenist, it is clear 1707, theology has brought about the massacre of more that these Jesuits ought to be punished. than fifty million men; and that I am proposing to strangle, Similarly, if the Jesuits have been parading improper eviscerate or poison only about six and a half million. maxims, if their institute is contrary to the laws of the [He anticipates the objection that his proposal to kill kingdom, there’s no way out of it: their society must be over six million in one year is vastly more drastic than fifty dissolved, and the Jesuits abolished and turned into citizens. million over four centuries. He brushes this objection aside The evil done to them is imaginary—the good is real. What as ‘puerile, even impious’ because] by my procedure I am hardship is there in wearing a short coat instead of a long saving the lives of all Catholics to the end of the world. [The robe, and being free instead of being a slave? In peace-time letter is then ceremonially signed off. We are not given the whole regiments are reformed in this way, without complaint; writer’s name. Voltaire takes over:] why do the Jesuits scream so loudly when they are reformed This project couldn’t be carried out, because a lot of time in the interests of peace? was needed to set it up properly, and Father Le Tellier was If the Franciscan monks, carried away by a holy zeal for exiled in the following year. But in the spirit of examining the Virgin Mary, try to destroy a church of Dominicans who both sides of the case, we should explore what the cases are believe that Mary was born in original sin, they will have to where it would be legitimate to carry out in part the views be treated in much the same way as the Jesuits. of Father Le Tellier’s correspondent. It would obviously be We may say the same of the Lutherans and Calvinists. It’s
39 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 19. Account of an angry dispute in China all very well for them to say: ‘We are following the promptings miles long, was given to the Jews in several consecutive of our conscience; it is better to obey God than men; we are covenants. They ought to regain their possessions, which the the true flock, and must exterminate the wolves.’ It is evident Mohammedans have usurped for the last thousand years. that when they say this, they are wolves. If the Jews reasoned like that today, it is clear that the One of the most astonishing examples of fanaticism was only reply we should make would be to impale them. that of a small Danish sect, whose principle was the best These are almost the only cases in which intolerance in the world: it was to secure eternal salvation for their appears reasonable. brethren; but its consequences were peculiar. They ‘knew’ that all infants who die unbaptised are damned, and that those who are so fortunate as to die immediately after 19. Account of an angry dispute in China baptism enjoy eternal glory. So they proceeded to kill all the newly-baptised boys and girls they could find. No doubt In the early years of the reign of the great Emperor Kam-hi, this was procuring for them the greatest possible benefit: a Mandarin of the city of Canton heard in his house a great preserving them from sin, from the miseries of this life, and noise coming from the next house. He inquired if anybody from Hell, and sending them straight to Heaven. But these was being killed, and was told that the almoner of the Danish charitable folk did not reflect that it is not lawful to do a missionary society, a chaplain from Batavia, and a Jesuit little evil that a great good may follow; that they had no were disputing. He had them brought to his house and right over the lives of these little children; that the majority served with tea and sweetmeats, and asked why they were of parents are worldly enough to prefer keeping their sons quarrelling. and daughters with them to seeing them slaughtered so as The Jesuit replied that it was very painful for him, some- to go to Paradise; and that the legal system has to punish one who was always right, to have to do with men who were homicide, even when it is done with a good intention. always wrong; that he had at first argued with the greatest The Jews would seem to have a better right than anyone restraint, but had at length lost patience. to rob and kill us. Though there are a hundred instances The Mandarin very gently reminded them of how impor- of tolerance in the Old Testament, there are also some tant it was that politeness be maintained in a dispute, told instances of severity and some laws supporting them. God them that in China nobody became angry, and asked what sometimes commanded them to kill idolaters, sparing only the dispute was about. the marriageable girls. They regard us as idolaters, and The Jesuit answered: ‘My lord, I leave it to you to decide. although we tolerate them today, if they got the upper hand These two gentlemen refuse to submit to the decrees of the they might kill everyone but our daughters. Council of Trent.’ They would, above all, be absolutely compelled to slay ‘I am astonished’, said the Mandarin. Then, turning to all the Turks [see Glossary], because the Turks occupy the the refractory pair, he said: ‘Gentlemen, you ought to respect lands of nine tribes [he names them], all of which were heading the opinions of a large gathering. I do not know what the for damnation. Their territory, which was more than 75 Council of Trent is, but a number of men are always better
40 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 20. Maintaining people in superstition informed than a single one. No-one ought to imagine that he intolerant nor intolerable.’ knows better than anyone else, and that he has a monopoly When they went out the Jesuit met a Dominican friar, of reason. So our great Confucius teaches; and, believe me, and told him that he had won, adding that truth always you will do well to submit to the Council of Trent.’ triumphed. The Dominican said: ‘If I had been there, you The Dane then spoke. ‘His lordship speaks with the would not have won; I would have convicted you of lying and greatest wisdom’, he said. ‘We respect the great asemblies, idolatry.’ The quarrel grew hot; the Dominican and the Jesuit as is proper, so we are in entire agreement with several that came to blows. The Mandarin, on hearing of this scandalous were held before the Council of Trent.’ conduct, sent them both to prison. A deputy mandarin said ‘Oh, if that is the case,’ said the Mandarin, ‘I beg your to the judge: ‘How long does Your Excellency wish them to be pardon. You may be right. So you and this Dutchman are of kept in prison?’ ‘Until they agree’, said the judge. ‘Ah!’ said the same opinion, against this poor Jesuit?’ the deputy, ‘then they will be in prison for the rest of their ‘Not a bit’, said the Dutchman. ‘This ·Dutch· fellow’s lives.’ ‘Well,’ said the judge, ‘until they forgive each other.’ opinions are almost as extravagant as those of the Jesuit over ‘They will never forgive each other’, said the other; ‘I know there, who is putting on such a show of sweet reasonableness. them.’ ‘Well, then’, said the Mandarin, ‘until they pretend to I can’t bear ·either of· them.’ forgive each other’. ‘I can’t make you out’, said the Mandarin. ‘Are you not all three Christians? Haven’t all three of you come to teach Christianity in our empire? Ought you not, therefore, to hold 20. Whether it is useful to maintain people the same doctrines?’ in superstition ‘It is this way, my lord’, said the Jesuit; ‘these two are mortal enemies ·of one another·, and are both against me. Such is the weakness of the human race, and such its Hence it is clear that they are both wrong, and I am right.’ perversity, that it is certainly better for it to be subject to ‘That is not quite clear’, said the Mandarin. All three of you all conceivable superstitions (other than murderous ones) may be wrong. I would be interested to hear you all, one than to live without religion. Man has always needed a curb; after the other.’ and, although it was ridiculous to sacrifice to fauns, elves The Jesuit then made a rather long speech, during which or water-nymphs, it was much more reasonable and useful the Dane and the Dutchman shrugged their shoulders; the to worship these fantastic images of the deity than to sink Mandarin did not understand a word of it. Then the Dane into atheism. An atheist who was argumentative, violent spoke; his two opponents regarded him with pity, and the and powerful would be as great a scourge as a blood-soaked Mandarin still understood nothing. The Dutchman had the superstitious man. same effect. In the end they all spoke together, grossly When men do not have not sound notions of the Divinity, insulting one another. The good Mandarin secured silence false ideas will take their place; just as in times of poverty with great difficulty, and said to them: ‘If you want us to those who have no genuine money make do with counterfeit. tolerate your teaching here, begin by being yourselves neither The pagan feared to commit a crime lest he should be
41 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 20. Maintaining people in superstition punished by false gods; the Hindu fears being punished stopped believing that it sufficed to pray for thirty days to by his Pagoda. Wherever there is a settled society, religion the Virgin Mary to get everything they wanted, and to sin is necessary. The laws take care of open crimes; religion with impunity. watches secret crimes. Eventually the bourgeoisie began to suspect that it was But once men have come to embrace a pure and holy not St. Genevieve who gave or withheld rain, but that it was religion, superstition becomes not merely useless but very God himself who disposed of the elements. The monks were dangerous. We must not feed on acorns those to whom God astonished to see that their saints no longer worked miracles. offers bread. If the authors of the life of St. Francis Xavier returned to the Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy— world, they would not dare to say that this saint raised nine the very foolish daughter of a very wise mother. These two people from the dead, that he was at sea and on land at the daughters have for too long dominated the earth. same time, and that when his crucifix fell into the sea a crab Back in our ages of barbarism, when there were scarcely restored it to him. two feudal lords with a New Testament in their homes, it may It is the same with excommunication. Historians tell have been pardonable to present fables to the uneducated— us that when King Robert had been excommunicated by i.e. to these feudal lords themselves, to their weak-minded Pope Gregory V for marrying his godmother, the Princess wives, and to their brutish vassals. They were led to believe Bertha, his servants threw out of the window the food served that St. Christopher had carried the infant Jesus across up to the king, and Queen Bertha gave birth to a goose in a river; they were fed stories of sorcery and diabolical punishment for this incestuous marriage. I doubt that in possession; they had no trouble believing that St. Genou our time the waiters of an excommunicated King of France cured gout and that St. Clare cured sore eyes. The children would throw his dinner out of the window, or that the queen believed in the werewolf, and their fathers in the girdle of St. for a similar offence would give birth to a gosling! Francis. The number of relics was incalculable. If there are a few bigoted fanatics in dark corners of The sediment of these superstitions remained among the the suburbs, it is a disease which, like lice, attacks only people even when religion had been purified. We know that the lowest of the populace. Every day in France reason when M. de Noailles, Bishop of Chalons, had the supposed penetrates into the shops of merchants as well into as the relic of the sacred navel of JESUS-CHRIST removed and thrown mansions of lords. The fruits of this reason should be in the fire, the entire city of Chalons took legal action cultivated, especially since it is now impossible to prevent against him. But he was as brave as he was pious, and them from developing. France, enlightened by the likes of soon managed to convince the people of that territory that Pascal, Nicole, Arnaud, Bossuet, Descartes, Gassendi, Bayle, they could worship JESUS-CHRIST in spirit and truth without Fontenelle, etc., cannot now be ruled as it was in the time of having his navel in a church. the likes of ·the religious polemicists· Garrasse and Menot. The so-called ‘Jansenists’ contributed in no small way If the masters of error—I mean the grand masters—who to gradually rooting out from the nation’s mind most of the were so long paid and honoured for brutalising the human false ideas that dishonoured the Christian religion. People species, ordered us today to believe that
42 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 21. Virtue is better than knowledge
•the seed must die in order to germinate, the same way in metaphysics. It would be easier to subdue •the earth stands motionless on its foundations, the whole world by arms than to subdue all the minds in a •it does not travel around the sun, single city. •the tides are not a natural effect of gravitation, Euclid easily persuaded all men of the truths of geometry. •the rainbow is not due to the refraction and reflection Why was this easy to do? Because every single one of them of light is an obvious corollary of the axiom Two and two make four. and so on, and based their decrees on ill-understood pas- It is not quite like that with the mixture of metaphysics and sages of Scripture, how would they be regarded by educated theology. men? Would the label ‘beasts’ be too strong? And if these When Bishop Alexander and the priest Arius began to wise masters used force and persecution to secure the argue over how the Logos emanated from the Father, the dominance of their insolent ignorance, would it be improper Emperor Constantine at first wrote to them as follows (as we to speak of them as ‘wild beasts’? find in Eusebius and Socrates of Constantinople): ‘You are The more the superstitions of the monks are despised, great fools to argue about things you cannot understand.’ the more the bishops are respected and the priests taken If the two contending parties had been wise enough to seriously; they do nothing but good, and the monkish super- agree that the emperor was right, the Christian world would stitions from Rome would do great harm. But of all these have been spared three centuries of bloodshed. superstitions isn’t the most dangerous that of hating one’s What indeed can be more stupid and more horrible than neighbour on account of his opinions? Isn’t it obvious that it to say this to men? would be more reasonable to worship the sacred navel, the ‘My friends, it is not enough to be loyal subjects, sacred prepuce, and the milk and dress of the Virgin Mary, obedient children, tender fathers, honest neighbours, than to detest and persecute one’s brother ? and to practise every virtue, cultivate friendship, avoid ingratitude, and worship JESUS-CHRIST in peace; you 21. Virtue is better than knowledge must also know how something can be engendered from all eternity without being made from all eternity; Fewer dogmas, fewer disputes; and fewer disputes, fewer and if you can’t distinguish the Homoousion in the 1 miseries; if that is not true, I am wrong. hypostasis, we pronounce that you will be burned for Religion is instituted to make us happy in this world and ever, and in the meantime we shall cut your throats.’ the next. What must we do to be happy in the next world? Had such an attitude been presented to Archimedes, or Be just. What must we do to be happy in this world, as far Poseidonius, or Varro, or Cato, or Cicero, how would they as the misery of our nature allows? Be indulgent. have responded? It would be the height of folly to try to get all men to think Constantine did not persevere in his resolution to impose
1 [Meaning, roughly, ‘if you can’t see that the three persons of the Trinity are one substance’; Voltaire expresses it in metaphysical technical terms as a way of mocking the whole debate.]
43 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 22. Universal tolerance silence on the contending parties. He could have invited But these people despise us and regard us as idolaters! the leaders of the hair-splitting to his palace; he could have Well, I’ll tell them that they are quite wrong. It seems asked them what authority they had to disturb the world: to me that I might at least shake the stubborn pride of ‘Have you the title-deeds of the divine Family? What a Mohammedan or a Buddhist priest by saying to them does it matter to you whether the Logos was made or something like this: engendered, provided men are loyal to him, preach ‘This little globe, which is but a point, travels in space a sound morality, and practise it as far as they can? like many other globes; we are lost in this immensity. I have done many wrong things in my time, and so Man, about five feet high, is certainly a small thing have you. You are ambitious, so am I. The empire has in the created universe. One of these imperceptible cost me much knavery and cruelty; I have murdered beings says to some of his neighbours, in Arabia or nearly all my relatives. I repent, and want to make up South Africa: “Listen to me, for the God of all these for my crimes by bringing peace to the Roman Empire. worlds has enlightened me. There are nine hundred Do not prevent me from doing the only good that can million little ants like us on the earth, but my ant-hill efface my earlier barbarism. Help me to end my days is the only one dear to God. He is horrified by all the in peace.’ others, to eternity; mine alone will be happy, and all Perhaps he would have had no influence on the disputants; the others will be eternally miserable.”’ perhaps he was flattered to be presiding at a Council in a They would then interrupt me, and ask who was the fool long red robe, his head covered with jewels. that talked this nonsense. I should be obliged to reply ‘It was Yet this it was that opened the gate to all the plagues that you’. I would then try to calm them down, which would be came from Asia upon the West. From every disputed verse difficult. of Scripture there issued a fury, armed with a sophism and I would next speak to the Christians, and would venture a dagger, making all men mad and cruel. The marauding to say to (for instance) a Dominican officer of the Inquisition: Huns and Goths and Vandals did infinitely less harm; and ‘Brother, you know that each province in Italy has its own the greatest harm they did was to take part themselves in dialect, and that people do not speak in Venice and Bergamo these fatal disputes. as they do in Florence. The Accademia della Crusca has fixed the language; its dictionary is a rule that ought not to be departed from; and the grammar of Buonmattei is 22. Universal tolerance an infallible guide that ought to be followed. But do you think that the Consul of the Academy—or in his absence One does not need great art and skilful eloquence to prove Buonmattei—could in conscience order that all the Venetians that Christians ought to tolerate each other—indeed, to and Bergamese who persisted in speaking their own dialect regard all men as brothers. What? my brother the Turk? my should have their tongues cut off?’ brother the Chinese? the Jew? Emphatically yes; are we not The inquisitor replies: ‘The two cases are very different. all children of the same Father, creatures of the same God? In our case it is a question of the salvation of your soul. It is
44 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 22. Universal tolerance for your own good that the Directors of the Inquisition order When we wear mourning for a king of Sweden, Denmark, •that you be seized on the information of any one England, or Prussia, do we tell ourselves that we are wearing person, however infamous or criminal; mourning for a damned person who burns eternally in hell? •that you have no advocate to defend you; There are in Europe forty million people who are not of the •that not even the name of your accuser shall be made Church of Rome. Shall we say to each of them ‘Sir, seeing known to you; that you are certainly damned, I will not eat or deal or speak •that the Inquisitor shall promise you pardon and then with you’? condemn you; and What ambassador of France, presented in audience to •that you shall then be subjected to five kinds of the Sultan, will say in the depths of his heart: ‘His Highness torture, and afterwards either flogged or sent to the will certainly burn for all eternity because he has been galleys or ceremonially burned. circumcised’? If he really believed that the Sultan is God’s On this Father Ivonet [and he names eight other theologians] are mortal enemy and the object of his vengeance, could he explicit, and this pious practice admits of no exception.’ speak to him? Ought he to be sent to him? What man could I would take the liberty of replying: ‘Brother, you may we do business with, what duty of civil life could we ever be right. I am convinced that you wish to do me good. But fulfil, if we really believed we were dealing with the damned? could I not be saved without all that?’ Followers of a merciful God, if you had been cruel of heart; It is true that these absurd horrors do not stain the face of if in worshipping him whose whole law consisted in the words the earth every day; but they have happened often enough for Love God and your neighbour you had burdened this pure a record of them to fill a book much larger than the gospels and holy law with sophistry and unintelligible disputes; if that condemn them. Not only is it cruel to persecute in this you had lit the fires of discord for the sake of a new word or 1 brief life those who do not think as we do, but I suspect that a single letter of the alphabet; if you had attached eternal it may be unduly bold to pronounce their eternal damnation. torment to the omission of a few words or ceremonies that It seems to me inappropriate for transient atoms, such as other peoples could not know; I would say to you, weeping we are, thus to get in ahead of the Creator’s decrees. I am for mankind: far from opposing the principle Outside the Church there is Come with me to the day on which all men will be no salvation. I respect it, and all that it teaches; but do we judged, when God will deal with each according to his really know all God’s ways and the full range of his mercies? works. I see all the dead of former ages and of our May we not hope in him as much as fear him? It is not own appearing side by side in his presence. Are you enough to be loyal to the Church? Must each individual really sure that our Creator and Father will say to the usurp the rights of the Deity, and decide before he does the wise and virtuous Confucius, to the lawgiver Solon, to eternal lot of all men? Pythagoras, to Zaleucus, to Socrates, to Plato, to the
1 [This refers to the infamous dispute over whether the three persons of the Trinity were the same substance or similar substances, homoousios or homoiousios.]
45 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 24. Postscript
divine Antonines, to the good Trajan, to Titus—the •our absurd opinions, and delights of the human race—and to Epictetus and to •our various conditions [see Glossary], that appear so so many other men, model men: disproportionate in our eyes and so equal in yours ‘Go, monsters! Go and submit to punishments —may all these little shades of difference among the atoms that are infinite in intensity and duration, your called ‘men’ not be use by us as triggers for hatred and per- torment being as eternal as I am’? secution! May those who worship you by the light of tapers And that he will say to Jean Chatel, Ravaillac, at noonday look kindly on those who content themselves Damiens, Cartouche, etc.1: with the light of your sun! May those who wear a robe of ‘My beloved followers, who died with the pre- white linen to teach their hearers that you are to be loved scribed formulae, stay at my right hand and not detest those who say the same thing wearing long cloaks share my empire and my happiness for ever’? of black wool! May it be accounted the same to worship You shrink with horror from these words; and now that I you in a dialect formed from an ancient language or in a have uttered them I have no more to say to you. newer dialect! May those who, clothed in crimson or violet, a rule over a little parcel of a heap of this world’s mud, and b possess some round fragments of a certain metal, enjoy 23. A prayer to God without pride what they call a ‘grandeur’ and b ‘riches’, and may the rest look on them without envy; for you know that So I don’t speak any longer to men, but to you, God of nothing in these vanities should inspire envy or pride. all beings, of all worlds, and of all ages; if it is permitted May all men remember that they are brothers! May they for weak creatures, lost in immensity and imperceptible to abhor the tyranny over souls, as they execrate the thievery the rest of the universe, to venture to ask for something that takes by force the fruits of peaceful industry! And if the from you—who have given everything and whose decrees are scourge of war is inevitable, let us not mutually hate and immutable and eternal. Deign to look with an eye of pity on destroy each other in the midst of peace; but rather make the errors that our nature leads us into! Let not these errors use of the moment of our existence to join in praising, in a be our downfall! You have not given us hearts to hate one thousand different languages, from Siam to California, the another and hands to kill one another; grant then that we goodness of you who gave us this moment! may help each other to support the burden of this painful and transitory life! May the trifling differences among 24. Postscript •the garments that cover our frail bodies, •the mode of expressing our insignificant thoughts, While I was engaged in writing this treatise, with the sole •our ridiculous customs, purpose of making mankind more benevolent and charitable, •our imperfect laws, someone else was writing with a completely opposite purpose;
1 [Assassins in the cause of the Church]
46 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 24. Postscript for each man has his own way of thinking. This man has Thank God, I am a good Catholic; I don’t have to fear published a little Code of persecution under the title of what the Huguenots call martyrdom; but if this man ever Religion’s Harmony with Humanity (a typographical error; becomes Prime Minister, as he seems in his diatribe to think read it as ‘Inhumanity’). he may, I hereby notify him that I will leave for England the The author of this holy diatribe relies on St. Augustine, day he is appointed. who first preached charity and then later—having reached In the meantime, I can only thank Providence for allowing a position of power, and being generally apt to change that those of his sort are always wretched reasoners. He his mind—preached persecution. He also quotes Bossuet, goes as far as listing Bayle among the advocates of intol- the Bishop of Meaux, who persecuted the famous Fénelon, erance; because Bayle agrees that incendiaries and rogues Archbishop of Cambray, whom he accused of having said in should be punished, our man—by a skillful and intelligent print that God was worthy to be loved for his own sake. inference—concludes that honest and peaceable persons I grant that Bossuet was eloquent; and I grant also that should be persecuted with fire and sword. the Bishop of Hippo [Augustine], though sometimes he doesn’t Almost the whole of his book is an imitation of the Apology argue well, was more elegant than the other African writers; for St. Bartholomew’s day. It is the work of that apologist and I will take the liberty of addressing them both in the himself or of his echo. Either way, we must hope that neither spirit of Armande, in Molière’s Learned Ladies: ‘When you the master nor the disciple will ever have a part in governing claim to take someone as a model, you should focus on the the state. most pleasing parts of his character.’ But if they do come have state authority, I shall present I will say to the Bishop of Hippo: My lord, you have had to them from a distance the following pleading based on a two opinions; allow me to abide by the first of them; I really sentence on page 93 of the holy diatribe: ‘Is the welfare of think it is the better one. the whole nation to be sacrificed to the welfare of a twentieth I will say to the Bishop of Meaux: My lord, you are a great part of it?’: man, and I find you to be at least as learned as St. Augustine Suppose that in fact there are twenty Roman Catholics and much more eloquent; but why did you so torment your in France to one Huguenot; I don’t want the Huguenot brother prelate, who was as eloquent as you in his own way, to eat these twenty Catholics; but then why should and more likable? these twenty Catholics eat this Huguenot? And why The author of the holy diatribe on inhumanity is not a should this Huguenot be prevented from marrying? Bossuet or an Augustine; he seems to be just right as an Aren’t there bishops, abbots and monks who have es- inquisitor; I would like to see him at the head of that fine tates in Dauphiné, in Gévaudan, in the regions of Agde tribunal in Goa. He is also a statesman, and parades several and Carcassonn? And these bishops, these abbots, great political principles. ‘If you have to deal with many and monks—don’t they have farmer tenants who have heretics’, he says, ‘manage them, persuade them; but if the misfortune to not believe in transubstantiation? there are only a few, then make use of the gallows and the Is it not the interest of bishops, abbots, monks and galleys; you’ll find that this works well.’ the general public that these farmers should have
47 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 24. Postscript
large families? Will only those who take communion used to produce each quarter a long list of recantations together be allowed to make children? Surely there is purchased at the rate of seven or eight crowns each, and neither justice nor honesty in this! convinced his king that he could, when he wanted to, convert This author says: ‘The revocation of the Edict of Nantes all the Moslems at the same price. People reported to the [see Glossary] has not produced as many inconveniences as king in order to deceive him: could he resist the seduction? have been attributed to it.’ Well, if anyone has attributed to This same Count d’Avaux also tells the king that a man it more bad effects than it actually produced, that was an named Vincent kept upwards of 500 workmen employed exaggeration; nearly all historians do exaggerate; but so do near Angoulême, and that if he left the kingdom it would controversialists trying to wipe out the evils they are accused create much hardship. He also mentions two regiments of. On this matter let us not trust either the ·Catholic· already raised by French refugee officers to serve the Prince professors of Paris or the ·Calvinist· preachers of Amsterdam. of Orange; he speaks of the sailors in three ·French· ships Let us take as our judge the Count d’Avaux, ambassador who had deserted in order to serve in that Prince’s ships. from France to Holland in 1685–8. He reports in his memoirs As well as those two regiments, the Prince was forming a that just one man offered to reveal upwards of 20,000,000 company of refugee cadets, commanded by two captains. livres that the persecuted Huguenots had managed to send This ambassador, in an 1686 letter, says that he can no out of France. Louis XIV replies to M. d’Avaux: ‘The accounts longer conceal the uneasiness it gives him to see French I daily receive of the prodigious numbers of those who are manufactures being established in Holland, from which they converted convince me that even the most obstinate will will never return. follow the example of the others ·by converting to Catholicism Combine all these testimonies with those of all the royal and returning to France·.’ deputies in 1698, and judge whether the revocation of the This letter of the king’s plainly shows that he was very Edict of Nantes has not done more harm than good, despite confident of the extent of his power. He was told every the opinion of the worthy author of Religion’s Harmony with morning: ‘Sire, you are the greatest monarch upon earth; Inhumanity.... you have only to declare your opinion and the whole world I confess that I was afraid I was going too far in making will be proud to accept it.’ Pélisson, who public the letter written to Father Le Tellier by a parish priest •had accumulated a prodigious fortune as chief clerk who proposed using barrels of gunpowder [see page 38]. I said of the Treasury, to myself ‘I won’t be believed; this letter will be regarded as •spent three years in the Bastille as an accomplice of a forgery’; but fortunately my scruples were removed when Fouquet, I read in Religion’s Harmony with Inhumanity these gentle •went from being a Calvinist to being a Roman Catholic words: ‘The entire extirpation of the Protestants in France deacon and beneficed priest, would not weaken that kingdom more than a blood-letting •published prayers for the mass and verses to Iris, and would weaken a patient with a sound constitution.’ This •had acquired the post of comptroller and converter in pious priest, who has just told us that the Protestants make chief of the heretics about a twentieth part of the nation, now favours shedding
48 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 25. Sequel and Conclusion the blood of that twentieth part and likens that operation to for the sentence condemning John Calas to die on the wheel. a minor blood-letting!. . . . His Majesty approved the council’s judgment. Now, if this worthy gentleman proposes killing a twentieth So justice and humanity still reside among men! and part of the nation, might not Father Letellier’s friend have principally in the Council of a deservedly beloved King. The proposed blowing up, stabbing, poisoning a third? So it is affair of an unhappy family of private citizens occupied very likely that the letter to Father Le Tellier was genuine. His Majesty, his ministers, the Chancellor, and the entire The holy author concludes that intolerance is an excellent Council, and was discussed as thoughtfully as any great thing ‘because we do not find it explicitly condemned by affair of war and peace could be. All the judges were guided JESUS-CHRIST’. But neither did JESUS-CHRIST condemn those by a love of equity and a concern for the welfare of mankind. who would set the whole of Paris ablaze; is that a reason to All praise be given to the merciful God who alone inspires canonise all arsonists? equity and all the virtues! And so it comes about that when the gentle and benev- I declare that I have never met •the unfortunate Calas, olent voice of •nature is heard on one side, its enemy whom the eight justices of Toulouse condemned to death •enthusiasm howls ·on the other·; and while peace is pre- on the most frivolous evidence, against the ordinances of senting itself to mankind, intolerance is forging weapons. our kings and against the laws of all nations; or •his son, O you arbiters of nations who have given peace to Europe, Marc Antoine, whose unusual death led those eight judges choose between the spirit of peace and the spirit of murder. into error; or •the mother, as respect-worthy as she is unfortunate; or •her innocent daughters, who travelled about 600 miles to lay their disaster and their virtue at the foot of 25. Sequel and Conclusion the throne. God knows that in writing out my thoughts on tolerance, On 7 March 1763 the entire Council of State assembled at in regard to Jean Calas, who was murdered by the spirit Versailles, with all the ministers of the government present of intolerance, I have been actuated only by a concern for and the Chancellor presiding, to hear a report on the affair justice, truth and peace. of the Calas family by M. de Crosne, the Masters of Requests. I did not intend to offend the eight judges of Toulouse in He spoke with the impartiality of a judge, with the precision saying that they were wrong, as the entire Council of State of one perfectly well acquainted with the case, and with the thinks they were. On the contrary, I have been opening a way simple and truthful eloquence of an orator and statesman, for them to excuse themselves before the whole of Europe, the only eloquence suitable to such an assembly. The gallery which they could do by of the palace was filled with a prodigious crowd of all ranks, •acknowledging that their justice was misled by am- waiting for the decision of the council. In a short time biguous evidence and the clamor of an enraged the King was informed that the Council had unanimously populace, ordered the parlement of Toulouse to transmit to them the •asking for the widow’s forgiveness, and whole account of its proceedings, together with its reasons •making what amends they can for the complete ruin
49 Treatise on Tolerance Voltaire 25. Sequel and Conclusion
of an innocent family, by by a bit of writing that has no legal status and draws on •joining those who are supporting them in their ideas ·concerning the value of tolerance· that have nothing affliction. to do with the matter that the Council is judging, ·namely, They have put the father to death unjustly; let them then be whether one judicial procedure was handled properly·. as fathers to his children, provided those fatherless children ‘If anyone published big books for or against the eight are willing to accept from them this poor token of repentance. judges of Toulouse, and for or against tolerance, neither the It would be appropriate for the judges to offer this and for Council nor any other court of justice would look upon these the injured family to refuse it. books as documents in the case. But it is principally for Sieur David, chief of the Toulouse ‘I agree that there are fanatics who will set up the cry judiciary and the first instigator of this persecution of inno- against me, but I maintain that there are many sensible cence, to set the example of remorse. He insulted the father readers who will use their reason. when he was dying on the scaffold. This was an unheard-of ‘I hear that the Parlement of Toulouse and some other act of cruelty; but because God forgives, men should also courts of justice have a legal system all of their own. They forgive those who make atonement for their offences.1 admit fourths, thirds, and sixths of a proof; so that with six Someone in Languedoc has written me a letter, dated hearsays on one side, three on the other, and four-fourths of 20.ii.1763, which includes this: ‘Your treatise on tolerance a presumption, they construct three complete proofs; and on seems to me to be full of humanity and truth; but I am afraid the basis of this fine construction they mercilessly condemn it will bring more harm than help to the Calas family. It may a man to be broken on the wheel. The slightest acquaintance gall the eight judges who favoured death on the wheel; they with the art of reasoning would lead them to a different will apply to the Parlement to have your book burnt; and method. A so-called ‘half-proof’ can only be a suspicion. the fanatics (there always are fanatics) will respond with an Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as a real half-proof; outcry against the voice of reason.’ either a thing is proved or it is not; there is no half-way. My answer was as follows: ‘The eight judges of Toulouse ‘A hundred thousand suspicions cannot combine to make may, if they please, have my book burnt; nothing is easier. a regular proof, any more than a hundred thousand zeros The Provincial Letters ·of Pascal· were burned; and they were can compose a number. certainly much better than this work. Everyone is at liberty ‘There are quarter-tones in music, even if they can’t to burn in his own house the books and papers that displease be executed; but there are no quarter-truths or quarter- him. reasonings. ‘My treatise cannot possibly help or harm the Calas fam- ‘Two witnesses agreeing in the same deposition are judged ily, whom I do not know. The King’s Council, impartial and to make a proof; but that is not enough: these two witnesses firm, bases its judgments on the laws, on equity, on the rules should be without passion, without prejudice, and above all of evidence, and on due procedure; it won’t be influenced their testimony should be consonant with reason.
1 [Not very long after these events, Sieur David de Beaudrigue was turned out of office and then committed suicide.]
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‘It would be no use four solemn persons saying that they it is divine, and do not substitute the wretched debates of saw an infirm old man seize a vigorous young fellow by the the schools for the voice of nature. collar and toss him forty feet out of a window; obviously It is I alone who unite you all, in spite of yourselves, by these four witnesses should be sent to a madhouse. your mutual needs, even in the midst of the cruel wars that ‘Well, the eight judges of Toulouse condemned Jean Calas you undertake so lightly, wars that are a continual scene of on a much more improbable accusation; for there was no error, dangers and misfortunes. It is I alone who, in a nation, witness who claimed to have seen this feeble 68-year-old prevent the fatal effects of the interminable disagreements take an extremely robust 28-year-old and single-handedly between the nobility and the judiciary, between those two hang him. Fanatics testified merely that other fanatics had bodies and the clergy, between the townsman and the farmer. told them that they had heard yet other fanatics say that They don’t know the limits of their rights, but in the long Jean Calas had hanged his son with the aid of supernatural run they all in spite of themselves hear my voice speaking strength. So an absurd sentence was based on absurd to their hearts. It is I alone who maintain equity in the law accusations. courts, where without me everything would be at the mercy ‘The only remedy for such jurisprudence is this: from now of indecision and whims, in the midst of a confused mass of on, someone must get himself better educated before he is laws that are allowed to buy the right to judge men.’ [This concludes Voltaire’s •often made haphazardly to meet a passing need, reply to the letter from Languedoc.] •different from province to province, from town to town, This treatise on tolerance is a petition that humanity and humbly presents to power and wisdom. I am sowing seed •nearly always contradictory in a single place. that may one day produce a harvest. Let us wait for the I alone can inspire justice, while the laws inspire only goodness of the King, the wisdom of his ministers, and the chicanery: he who hears me always judges well; and he spirit of reason that is starting to spread its light everywhere. who seeks only to reconcile contradictory opinions gets lost. Nature says to all men: [This speech runs to the end of the There is an immense edifice whose foundation I laid with work.] I have made you all weak and ignorant, to vegetate for my own hands. It was solid and simple; all men could enter a few minutes on earth and to fertilise it with your corpses. it with safety; but they wanted to add to it the most bizarre, Since you are weak, help one another; since you are ignorant, crude and useless ornaments; the building is falling into enlighten and support one another. If you were all of the ruin on all sides; men gather up the stones to throw at one same way of thinking (which you certainly never will be) anothers’ heads; I cry out to them, ‘Stop! Clear away this except for one man who thought differently, you should dreadful debris that you have created, and live peacefully forgive him, for it is I who make him think the way he does. with me in the unshakable mansion that I created.’ I have given you arms to cultivate the earth, and a little light of reason to steer by; I have planted in your hearts a seed of compassion to help you to assist one another to get through life. Do not smother that seed; do not corrupt it; know that
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